NOBLE, Michael (c.1591-1649), of the Close, Lichfield, Staffs.

The Nobles had been resident in the Lichfield area since early Tudor times and were property-owners in the city itself by the 1590s.28Vis. Staffs. ed. Grazebrook, 221; VCH Staffs. xiv, 66. However, the family had made little appreciable impact upon local affairs before Michael’s appointment under Lichfield’s 1623 royal charter as coroner and town clerk.29Harwood, Lichfield, 345. It appears from these appointments that Noble had received legal training of some kind, although there is no evidence that he attended any of the inns of court. That he was also a man of puritan, or at least anti-Laudian, sympathies can be inferred from the friendship that his wife Mary struck up in 1636 with the prophetess Lady Eleanor Davies.30CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 219; ‘Lady Eleanor Davies’, Oxford DNB. Mary Noble had ‘continual private conference’ with Davies and supported her actions in defiling the Laudian hangings and ornaments on the altar in Lichfield cathedral.31CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 219. Whatever notoriety attached to his wife as a result of this incident does not seem to have dented Noble’s reputation in the city, for he was returned as junior Member for Lichfield in the elections to the Long Parliament in 1640. He probably owed his election to his interest within the corporation.32Supra, ‘Lichfield’.

Noble’s parliamentary career began slowly, with only five committee appointments between November 1640 and 23 July 1641, when he was granted leave of absence.33CJ ii. 54b, 92b, 101a, 164a, 195b, 221a. He had returned to Westminster by 11 January 1642, when he informed the Commons that the Laudian archbishop of York, John Neile, had stockpiled arms and ammunition.34CJ ii. 369a. The next day (12 Jan.), he was made a committeeman for preparing a declaration warning the people ‘to be in a readiness ... to defend their several counties from invasion by papists or other ill-affected persons and to declare the several designs that this quarter of year past hath been against the Parliament and safety of the kingdom’.35CJ ii. 372a. Noble apparently endorsed the idea of a court-sponsored papist plot to subvert the kingdom’s liberties, and he would continue to do so even as Parliament encroached upon those same liberties during the course of 1642. He spoke very little on the floor of the Commons, but apparently took a close interest in its affairs, supplying the parliamentary diarist Framlingham Gawdy with information on debates in the House.36PJ i. 381, 435; iii, 64, 242.

Little can be gauged from Noble’s 16 committee appointments during 1642 – beyond the fact that he seems to have supported the justice, or at least necessity, of Parliament’s taking up arms against the king. In June, he pledged to bring in £100 on the propositions for the maintenance of the army being raised under Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex.37PJ iii. 473. And he was named in July to committees for preparing a declaration in support of the militia ordinance and to monitor the activities of the king’s commissioners of array.38CJ ii. 663b, 689b. Whether his lack of appointments between late July and 17 October reflected a ‘wobble’ in his allegiance to Parliament or simply his summer break is not clear. Nevertheless, the carnage at Edgehill does not seem to have pushed him in a more irenic political direction. Named on 7 November to a committee of both Houses to thank the earl of Essex for his generalship during the Edgehill campaign, he was appointed with Sir William Brereton* on 24 November to attend the lord general and request that he grant commissions for raising companies to defend Staffordshire.39CJ ii. 838b, 862b. Essex was recorder of Lichfield and its leading electoral patron, and it seems likely that he knew Noble and accounted him among his friends in the Commons. Noble was certainly accounted no friend to the king’s supporters, playing a leading role in December in seizing and investigating persons that the Commons suspected were sending money to the royalists.40CJ ii. 898a, 898b, 899b. His son John shared his political convictions, becoming a captain in Parliament’s army.41Harwood, Lichfield, 361. Noble’s reasons for siding with Parliament are obscure, but probably owed something to his local connection with the Essex interest and also – more importantly, perhaps – to his religious sympathies. He featured regularly on committees relating to godly reform, and on 27 August 1645, he was appointed to thank the Staffordshire Presbyterian divine John Lightfoot for preaching before the Commons.42CJ ii. 54b, 101a, 811a; iii. 124a, 173b, 579b; iv. 254b, 275b, 411b, 502a; LJ x. 178b; ‘John Lightfoot’, Oxford DNB.

Noble’s busiest year in the Long Parliament was probably 1643. Again, he seems to have contributed very little to proceedings on the floor of the House. But several of his 30 or so Commons’ appointments reinforce the impression that he was aligned with Essex’s interest at Westminster and therefore – at least for the first half of 1643 – with the faction committed to the vigorous prosecution of the war. On 26 January, he was named to a committee for recruiting cavalry to serve under Essex; he was ordered on 25 March to attend the lord general to request his assistance in the defence of Staffordshire; and on 13 May, he was appointed to a twelve-man committee of both Houses to liaise with the London Common Council for securing a constant supply of money for Essex’s army.43CJ ii. 943; iii. 84a; LJ vi. 45a; Harl. 164, f. 343v.

Having initially expressed doubts concerning the viability of a military association between Staffordshire and Warwickshire, Noble had warmed to the idea by 28 February 1643, when he complained that an ordinance for levying money in the two counties to maintain the association had stuck in the Lords (where the peace interest was strongly represented): ‘we have gone to the Lords four or five times, who have denied it. It’s strange the Lords will not pass such a thing’.44Add. 18777, ff. 106, 166v. That same day (28 Feb.), he was appointed to a conference team – together with the grandees John Pym, John Glynne, Oliver St John and Henry Marten – concerning this ordinance and all similar legislation stuck in limbo in the Upper House.45CJ ii. 984a. During the early months of 1643, he received a series of appointments relating to the maintenance of the war effort in the north and the west midlands and to convey Parliament’s thanks to its commanders and adherents in Staffordshire.46CJ ii. 983a, 1003b; iii. 18a, 20b, 23a, 106b; Add. 31116, p. 73; SP28/252, pt. 2, f. 120; SP28/255, unfol. (Noble’s accts. 12 June 1645).

Probably Noble’s most important contribution to the parliamentarian cause was as chairman of a committee set up on 12 April 1643 for introducing an excise tax.47CJ iii. 41a. Much of the proceeds of the excise would go towards the supply of Essex’s army, and it was therefore no coincidence that it was Noble and the lord general’s paymaster, Sir Gilbert Gerard*, who were assigned leading roles in steering the necessary legislation through the House. Noble made several reports to the House in May and June concerning the scope and projected income of the new tax, and on 9 June, the Commons resolved to appoint him master of the London excise office.48CJ iii. 100a, 122b, 145b. On 16 June, however, having received advice from a Dutch tax expert, the House over-ruled its vote of 9 June – ‘Mr Noble utterly renouncing that office and desiring it might be conferred upon anybody else’ – and resolved to put the excise in commission.49CJ iii. 131b; Add. 31116, p. 113. It was Noble who carried the draft excise ordinance up to the Lords on 3 July; and later that month, he reported and managed conferences concerning the peers’ amendments to the legislation.50CJ iii. 152b, 168a, 169a, 172a; Harl. 164, ff. 388v, 391; Add. 31116, pp. 100, 108, 113. He was also entrusted with overseeing the printing of the ordinance.51CJ iii. 170b.

Noble’s lack of appointments between mid-August and mid-October 1643 may be simply another instance of him taking an end of term break. But the timing of his apparent absence, or at least inaction, is perhaps significant. One of his last appointments before this brief hiatus in his parliamentary career was to a committee set up on 9 August for thanking the women who had flocked to Westminster a few days earlier in support of the doomed attempt by the peace party to secure a settlement before the Scottish Covenanters entered the civil war.52CJ iii. 199b. The earl of Essex had been closely involved in this initiative – pulling out only at the last moment – and he remained strongly opposed to the idea of Scottish intervention. It is possible, therefore, that Noble’s low profile in the aftermath of the August peace initiative reflected a similar hostility to bringing in the Scots. Certainly many of those MPs associated with the peace interest absented themselves from Westminster at this time and did not begin to reconcile themselves to the Solemn League and Covenant until it became clear in late September that the king had concluded a cessation of arms with the Irish.

Noble was listed by John Rushworth* among those MPs who took the Covenant on 25 September 1643 in St Margaret’s church, Westminster.53Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 480. Nevertheless, his first appointment that autumn was not until 12 October, when he was named to a committee – of which he was subsequently made chairman – for supplying Essex’s army, ‘and to consult with my lord general upon all occasions’.54CJ iii. 274a, 280b. Whereas the maintenance of Essex’s forces had been a major priority for the war party at the start of the year, by the end of 1643 it was of more concern to the peace interest, as Essex sought to use his military authority to press for a negotiated settlement. Noble may also have chaired a committee that autumn to bolster the authority of one of Essex’s friends and allies, Basil Feilding, 2nd earl of Denbigh, as commander-in-chief of Parliament’s west midlands association. On 2 November, Noble reported an ordinance to provide Denbigh ‘with an ample commission for raising of men and money’ in the association. This draft ordinance was deemed a bit too ample by the House, however, which recommitted it and referred the care of this business specially to Noble and John Wylde.55CJ iii. 280b, 298b; Add. 31116, p. 177; Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 402. Like Essex, Denbigh had deep misgivings about a Scottish alliance. Indeed, if later allegations can be credited, he went into the west midlands late in August 1643 with the intention of raising a ‘third party’ in the region, presumably to pressure one or both sides into seeking a negotiated, and exclusively English, settlement.56Infra, ‘Sir Edward Littleton’.

Noble was identified by Denbigh’s friends, as well as by his war-party opponents Brereton and John Swynfen*, as one of the earl’s allies at Westminster.57HMC 4th Rep. 269; Brereton Lttr. Bks. i. 403; ii. 218. He secured nomination in first place to a committee of both Houses on 21 August 1644 to consider a petition from Denbigh’s supporters in Staffordshire, praising the earl’s ‘fidelity, valour and wisdom’.58CJ iii. 602a; LJ vi. 682b. On 30 September, as well as organising the presentation to the Commons of a pro-Denbigh petition from the Staffordshire gentry, he carried up to the Lords a pro-Denbigh remonstrance from the Warwickshire county committee.59Harl. 166, f. 126. CJ iii. 644a. Otherwise, his activities in the House during 1644 appear largely unremarkable. He was named to 11 committees that year – the majority of them relating to the maintenance of the war effort at local level – and put in several appearances at the Committee for Irish Affairs*, although he was never formally admitted to this body.60CJ iii. 376a, 383b, 400a, 415a, 457a, 482a, 501a, 567b, 574a, 579b, 602a; Add. 4771, ff. 59v, 63v.

Despite his alignment with the Essexian interest at Westminster, Noble was named to several committees in 1645 on the Self-Denying Ordinance and for the supply of the New Model army.61CJ iv. 71a, 88a, 149a. Indeed, on 20 May, his name headed a committee to extract £10,000 for the army from the excise commissioners.62CJ iv. 149a. However, several other of his 17 Commons’ appointments in 1645 – which included nomination as a reporter and manager of two (minor) conferences – suggest that he remained broadly within the Essexian camp.63CJ iv. 27a, 293a. Thus, he chaired a committee set up on 23 August for remunerating Scottish army officers who had served in Parliament’s armies – the Scots now looking to Essex and his allies to defend their interests at Westminster.64CJ iv. 259b, 295a. That same day (23 Aug.), the Commons approved Noble’s nomination by the Lords as a deputy lieutenant for Staffordshire, but rejected the other nominees, who were almost all leading members of the pro-Denbigh, Presbyterian faction in the county.65CJ iv. 251b. The reason why Noble made the cut was probably because he alone of the nominees was an MP. In his only recorded contribution to debate during 1645, he joined the pro-Denbigh MPs Sir Simonds D’Ewes and William Jesson on 12 May in urging the appointment of Lieutenant-colonel Robert Phippes, another ally of Denbigh, as governor of Coventry.66Harl. 166, f. 208v; A. Hughes, Politics, Society and Civil War in Warws. (Cambridge, 1987), 180. On 25 September, Noble was named to a committee for satisfying Denbigh’s and his soldiers’ public debts.67CJ iv. 286a.

Noble’s parliamentary career tailed off after 1645. He was named to only six committees between January 1646 and February 1647, when he took what was apparently permanent leave of absence.68CJ iv. 411b, 502a, 541a, 689a, 701b; v. 15a, 87a, 98a. In October 1647, he was declared absent and excused – on grounds of ill health – at the call of the House and was declared absent and excused again on 24 April and 26 September 1648.69CJ v. 330a, 543b; vi. 34b. In March 1648, when he wrote his will, he described himself as ‘something weak in body’, which further suggests that had abandoned his seat because of ill-health.70PROB11/211, f. 323. He died in February 1649 and was buried next to his mother and father in Lichfield Cathedral.71Vis. Staffs. ed. Grazebrook, 221; PROB11/244, f. 247. He charged his estate with bequests of £1,200.72PROB11/211, f. 323. He was the first and last of his line to sit in Parliament.